Rosie lay in her bed. She’d been feeling under the weather before the tup lamb had butted her, but now she was worse, much worse. She’d managed to eat her supper by sharing it with the farmhouse cat, and had put on a brave face when her mother had come to check on her, withholding just how ill she was, but now all she wanted to do was cry. The pain had been so intense and she could feel that the bedclothes beneath her were soiled with blood. If there had been a baby, there wasn’t now; it was dead, and her nightdress and bedding were stained with its remains.

She hugged her pillow to her and didn’t dare look underneath the sheet at the extent of the blood she had lost, and whether there was anything that resembled a baby. She daren’t tell anyone, although she longed to confide in her mother. She wished her mother could be there to comfort her in her arms. Instead, in the morning before anyone else awoke, she’d put her sheets and nightclothes in the boiler to wash and would hope that nobody suspected her plight. At least then neither she nor Ethan would be chastised, and nobody would know any different or suspect that she had been with child. It was the best thing she could do, and perhaps her accident had been a blessing.

She looked up at the ceiling and sobbed. She no longer had a baby to worry about, but there was still no sign of Ethan. He had shown his true colours and she was without anyone. How stupid she had been to fall in love with the stable boy, a gypsy. Her love for him must never be known by anyone and now, with the baby gone, it would be her secret.

17

17

‘What are you doing?’ It was only just breaking light when Harriet opened the scullery door to find Rosie swilling her bed linen in the brown earthenware sink and stoking up the boiler.

‘Mother, I didn’t hear you!’ Rosie blushed and looked across at her mother; she’d hoped to get the sheets swilled and into the boiler to soak in the mixture of water and soda crystals before her mother had arisen. ‘I didn’t want Mary to see my accident. I wanted to wash my sheets before she arrived. I feel so ashamed that I have marked my sheets with my monthly.’ Rosie bowed her head and bit her lip. She could have cried quite openly as she looked at her mother.